"I was saying," he said, "that it was too bad you don't have to wear some of the old rags sometimes, then you'd know how mother and I feel about donation parties."
There was absolute silence for a moment in the little kitchen. A late October cricket chirped somewhere.
Then, "O Jason!" gasped his mother.
The boy was only twelve, but he had been bred in a difficult school and was old for his years. He looked again at the heaps of cast-off clothing on the floor and his gorge rose within him.
"I tell you," he cried, before his father could speak, "that I'll never wear another donation party pair of pants. No, nor a shirt-tail shirt, either. I'm through with having the boys make fun of me. I'll earn my own clothes every summer and I'll earn mother's too."
"You'll do nothing of the sort, sir," thundered Jason's father, his great bass voice rising as it did in revival meetings. "You'll do nothing but wear donation clothes as long as you're under my roof. I've long noted your tendency to vanity and mammon. To my prayers, I shall begin to add stout measures."
Jason threw back his head, a finely shaped head it was with good breadth between the eyes.
"I tell you, sir, I'm through with donation pants. If folks don't think enough of the religion you preach to pay you for it I'd—I'd advise you to get another religion."
Under his beard, Ethan Wilkins went white, but not so white as Jason's mother. But she spoke quietly.
"Jason, apologize to your father at once."